4 Finance Team Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

Finance teams are smart, but not infallible. Even the most talented and dedicated finance professionals, like the ones on your team, are bound to make a mistake from time to time. But some mistakes are more costly than others.

Have you ever been in the middle of a presentation and realized that you were talking about the wrong data? Or have you had an executive ask for data that you simply couldn’t find? With the right tools and automation, you can avoid these embarrassing moments.

Oops, That Was Last Month’s Data

Here’s a cringeworthy moment: you’re presenting data in a meeting. Executives and senior managers are watching you. Then suddenly someone says, “Hey, aren’t these last month’s numbers?”

Yikes! The spreadsheet wasn’t updated properly, and now you’re in the middle of analyzing old data in front of top leaders.

This isn’t just a nightmare scenario. All too often, finance professionals work with outdated data. Sometimes, it shows up in presentations. Other times, an executive calls it out in a reply-all email. Even worse—if no one recognizes the mistake, important decisions can be made based on the wrong data.

Connect Excel to Real-Time Data

Don’t let old data and outdated spreadsheets embarrass you ever again. Use real-time data to fill out your reports, presentations, and more. Of course, Excel alone is not going to give you the timeliness that you need. Those spreadsheets need to be manually updated.

To get real-time data, you’ll need access to the right tools. To get an instantly refreshable connection, you might need an add-in tool that connects your spreadsheets with your source data.

Another Phishing Email Made It Through

Nobody ever said a career in finance would be a thrill, but it shouldn’t be a snooze-fest. According to Forbes, finance professionals can only focus on mundane tasks for 41 minutes at a time. However, they spend 3.5 hours each day on these jobs.

What exactly does that mean? When finance teams spend too much time on the most boring work, they:

• Let their minds wander
• Struggle to retain any other information
• Decrease their productivity
• Get frustrated or disengaged

Perhaps the most telling stat is that about one-third of finance professionals say they make more mistakes when they spend too much time on boring jobs. They aren’t talking about a decimal in the wrong place, though that can have devastating consequences too. These professionals report missing signs of fraud and sharing confidential information.

Have AI Do the Mundane Work

These so-called mundane tasks must get done, but making your qualified finance professionals do it all causes real problems. What’s a manager to do?

Make the robots do it.

AI won’t replace your finance team, but it can help them do their work more efficiently. The right AI tools can complete mundane finance tasks; giving your team more time to be strategic, make fewer mistakes, and stay engaged.

Telling the Boss “I Don’t Know” in the Board Report

Uncertainty is the name of the game these days. Between geopolitical events, tariffs, and supply chain issues, businesses need to be able to change strategies on a dime. For finance professionals, that often means getting really specific questions from executives who need answers right away.

All too often, the answer to these important questions is simply, “I don’t know.” With typical spreadsheets, you can’t drill down, you don’t have real-time data, and retracing your steps is time-consuming. So one-off reports and other demands may take days or weeks to get.

By then, the information is outdated, and decisions have already been made. Meanwhile, the finance team was unable to provide strategic leadership. It’s embarrassing and creates a lose-lose situation.

Drill Down Into the Data Quickly

Do you want to impress the boss with quick, insightful answers? Of course you do! You’re going to need to make sure that you can drill down in your spreadsheets.

With an excellent Excel add-in, you can get instant access to journals, payables, receivables, and more without leaving Excel. When an executive asks about Q3 sales in the Northeastern region or the amount spent on contractors last quarter, you can answer quickly.

No more exporting data and making spreadsheets manually. Get the boss answers within minutes instead.

Oh No! IT Doesn’t Have Time for Us!

The finance and IT departments in any organization often work hand-in-hand. The IT department provides support for recurring reports, one-off projects, and other data needs. But what happens when IT doesn’t have the capacity to meet all of the finance team’s needs?

According to research from insightsoftware, 88% of finance leaders say that they rely too heavily on IT. When executives ask for a report, finance teams ask for help from their IT colleagues. But IT teams may have a backlog of tickets to attend to.

So, the ticket goes unanswered for a week or more. By the time the team can get the report they needed, the information is outdated, or the decisions have been made. When every inquiry turns into an IT project, everyone gets frustrated.

Choose User-Friendly Tools Instead

Finance professionals don’t need to rely on IT colleagues for everything; they can get the information they need on their own. And no, they don’t need to upskill and become data scientists to do it.

Instead, finance and IT leaders can choose tools that empower their finance teams. Spreadsheet Server puts the power in the hands of finance teams, and they never have to leave Excel.

With Spreadsheet Server, finance professionals can avoid all of these mistakes and more. Get real-time data that you can drill into without asking IT. You can even have AI do a lot of the mundane work for your team.

Learn more about this self-serve reporting tool and see how it can work for you.

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